Are We All Generating The Exact Same Hashes?

da2ce7

legendary

Activity: 1222

Merit: 1016

Live and Let Live

Quote from: Syke on March 24, 2011, 02:07:38 AM

Right. It doesn't matter what your nonce is. You could start at 1 and increment by 3. You could start at 10000000 and decrement by 17. Every attempted nonce has the same chance of "cracking the block".

Assuming that SHA256 is uniform and well distributed. Cheesy

That in for our needs it appears to be close enough to.

Syke

legendary

Activity: 3878

Merit: 1193

Quote from: gigabytecoin on March 23, 2011, 11:21:39 PM

Ok then. Thanks guys! That answers my question. I was wrong.

So a nonce can be basically anything then?

Like 0, or 0a9257n02370?

Right. It doesn't matter what your nonce is. You could start at 1 and increment by 3. You could start at 10000000 and decrement by 17. Every attempted nonce has the same chance of "cracking the block".

theymos

administrator

Activity: 5222

Merit: 13032

Quote from: FreeMoney on March 23, 2011, 11:20:24 PM

I thought the nonce stared at 1 for everyone and the public key in the generate transaction ensured we were not redoing work. I may have gotten that out of some oversimplified explanation though.

You're right. It starts at 1 and increments. The public key is what makes your block unique.

gigabytecoin

sr. member

Activity: 280

Merit: 252

Ok then. Thanks guys! That answers my question. I was wrong.

So a nonce can be basically anything then?

Like 0, or 0a9257n02370?

Any links to the nonce specifications???

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Quote from: ?? on ??

A cryptographic nonce is pseudo-random.

I thought the nonce stared at 1 for everyone and the public key in the generate transaction ensured we were not redoing work. I may have gotten that out of some oversimplified explanation though.

theymos

administrator

Activity: 5222

Merit: 13032

There is a "salt" in the form of your unique public key. See:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_hashing_algorithm

gigabytecoin

sr. member

Activity: 280

Merit: 252

This is how I imagine the mining system to work...

There is a certain block value that needs to be "cracked" next.

Code:

1. You take a hash of the current block's value plus the number 0 (as the nonce).

2. If the resulting hash is less than the value of the target number, you "win".

3. If it is larger than the value of the target number you add 1 to the nonce and then hash the block's value plus 1.

4. Repeat step 2.

Tell me if I am wrong on the above please, that will answer the question I am about to ask!

Are we all generating the exact same hashes? Is there no random "salt" that we each add to the hash strings to make then unique?

Couldn't a "cheater" safely assume that the first 10 million nonces were going to be wrong, and start at 10 million and 1st nonce to get a "head start" on everybody else that is mining?

Just trying to wrap my head around Satoshi's genius.

Topic: Are We All Generating The Exact Same Hashes? (Read 1490 times)